Work Text:
Christmas.
His parents never did think alike on the subject. That seemed the case in many aspects of their marriage. It was hard to understand why they had been together in the first place really. For his mother every day was holy so celebrating the Christ child was not a special event. If nothing else Quakerism was low key, like a steady cart horse going about a daily routine versus most religion’s show pony approach to singling out special “holidays”. Still his father leant more to the secular side of Christmas and the odd wreath or Christmas trinket might appear. But never a tree. That would be too much. Too showy.
You couldn’t call this a tree, not really. The little spindly thing barely stood three feet tall and leaned as if a stiff breeze were rushing by. He’d never done this before and it was vexing. It had taken just shy of an unreasonable amount of time to balance it in the little stand not to mention on the tiny table by his front basement window. The small rope of fairy lights became a tangled blob right out of the packet and once finally affixed dragged down the slender branches. And how did all the red lamps end up aligned on one side of the tree? After another 10 minutes fussing about, it was finally lit with a somewhat pleasing symmetry.
Now for the baubles. Hmmm. It seemed sensible that a pattern should be chosen and executed but no matter how he tried the green balls clashed with the blue balls and the red balls clustered around the gold ones. Frustrated he took them all off and stood with hands on narrow hips to have a think. It dawned on him that this was a Chaos Theory problem and that placing the ornaments randomly might reveal the pattern after all. This less regimented approach was more enjoyable, and in the end, he found more of the wide bare spaces filled up with the shiny little orbs.
He stood back and studied his work.
This was stupid.
Why had he gone to all this bother? All of this would just end up in the bin in a week. It was a waste of good money really.
Still, as he sat in his one good chair and the afternoon light slowly faded, he found he was drawn to the little tree in the darkening room. The lights created a warm glow and spread spiky shadows across the ceiling. He thought about the strangeness of holidays. The gathering of families like the Thursdays. What was the point? It hardly seemed necessary to make such a fuss about one particular day over another.
He wondered what they might be doing right now. And if Joan might relent from her self-imposed exile and join them. He huffed and ran his fingers through his hair. No, the world rarely offered simple happy endings like that.
Still there was something about Christmas Eve.
Bored with himself he decided the tree needed something more. Something on top. He pulled out the aluminum foil and ripping off a square he spent the next few minutes fashioning a little silver star. He was poking it onto the top most point of the tree when he heard a knock on his door.
He opened it to a group of people crowding his stairwell and immediately assailing him with a loud, sloppy version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Looking on in bewilderment he recognized his governor, Sam Thursday and Jim Strange at the back huddled around Dr. DeBryn and Shirley Trewlove as they all attempted to harmonize.
It was not going well.
Once done they moved as one laughing, self-congratulatory mass, pushing through the door to the apparent expectation of a traditional hot toddy. As Morse’s stunned brain caught up, he finally shut the door and skirted the small crowd. There was no hope of anything warm and spiced on offer. The half bottle of scotch would have to suffice.
After everyone had a glass or teacup or, in Strange’s case, a small bowl of cheer, Morse stood back against the empty fireplace. He marveled at this small spectacle before him. It was a joyous, chattering mass of pure chaos. It didn’t make sense, but as a gentle warmth infused him, he realized it didn’t need to.
“Nice tree Morse.”
Thursday stood by his side, gesturing his juice glass toward the little twinkling pine.
Morse smiled as he dropped his head to his chest, a soft flush spreading over his cheeks.
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Merry Christmas Morse.”
“Yes, it is Sir.”